Social selling: Tip #5 Build your social graph!
Happy Monday!
We are continuing our social selling series and today will focus on one of the top 5 pieces of advice for strong selling in the blogosphere!
The Blogosphere is a connected community of all blogs and their interconnections, including micro-blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, and so on. Essentially all social tools online.
Have fun building your social graph!
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Mixed Audiences into today's Social Business World
Today, I was chatting with a client who proclaimed that he wished everyone was using social! The world would be so simple!
Yes, it would but we don't live in that world --- and won't for a few years.
Today, I see us having 3 types of people.
- Digital Natives. These are people who grew up online and in social networks. They work in a collaborative fashion -- they grew up this way. They do not do email or even answer phones. (Note: The post-millennial "digital native" was a term coined by U.S. author Marc Prensky.
- Digital Immigrants. These are people who have not grown up digitally but have taken to the new social world and use the tools like a native. They have a foot in each world... being able to leverage email, and traditional forms of collaboration, with the new world.
- Non Digitals or affectionately called The Analogs. Yes we all know they and they are in very significant places of influence today. They email, they dictate, and they don't use Facebook. These are some of your best clients, so you cannot leave them behind.
Yes, and today there are digital outcasts. These are folks who would grow up digitally but globally have not been blessed with the resources to do so. Many companies are working on these issues which I believe must be fixed before we do see people across the globe plugged into the "AORTA," which is Always On RealTime Access, a term coined by Mark Anderson, the chief of the Strategic News Service.
What do you see? How long before the Natives overtake enough influential positions?
Privacy - Interesting study for your Social Profiles
In an IBM study of the Empowered Customer with a sample size of 28,000 global consumers, a fundamental change is emerging. Customers are increasingly open to providing information about themselves in exchange for perceived benefit such as improved personalization, service, etc. And remember, this is on a global scale .. not something that is a US only trend.
In fact, I was surprised to see that 75% are willing to provide information on media usage and demographics but almost 60% of global customers are willing to provide information about their lifestyle and locations which will enable companies to further tailor the shopping experience.
I think this is significant as 73% of CEOs are investing in customer insights. These factoids tell us that a client would be willing to spend an additional 20 minutes if you provide them with some value.
Do you need a coffee break? Social Selling Series Begins!
Today we are starting a series on Social Selling!
Once the overview is done, we have a series of 5 core areas to focus on for social selling!
Enjoy!
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Takeaways from Social Airline Summit in Prague
I just returned from the 2013 IBM Airline Summit in Prague where I met with about 40 senior executives from airlines worldwide. The summit was two full days packed with stimulating panel discussions, group activities and breakout sessions with speakers from airlines, industry analysts, and other consumer-facing businesses such as Coca-Cola and Netflix. I led a discussion about how nimble businesses are using social tools and techniques to help their employees be more effective, innovate, and share their knowledge.
Here are a few take-aways from the Airline Summit:
IBM’s Eric Conrad kicked it off with a fascinating vision for the near term future of travel.
Travel customers expect a truly personalized experience, before during and after their trip. That means airlines will need to become much more engaged with customers by using social business tools, big data and analytics. Eric issued 4 challenges to the group:
- Automate the ordinary to deliver the extraordinary
- Collaborate far beyond current comfort zones
- Elevate customer data analytics to an art form
- Aggressively dismantle barriers to change
New IBM and PhoCusWright study about social business in the travel industry
PhocusWrights’s Norm Rose led a session about the new study PhoCusWright and IBM have launched for the travel industry. The study takes the pulse of the travel industry's use and abuse of social platforms and reveals the strategies and tactics they are using today. Surveying all sectors of the travel market, the survey will dig deep into their tools, techniques, benchmarks, question marks, successes and flops. If you’re in the travel industry and you’re asked to participate, go for it! Then watch for the results which will be published in a few months.
Why big data matters to airlines
We saw a panel discussion about “Airlines, Big Data & the Customer Experience.” Panelists discussed how airlines can take advantage of analytics to drive revenue growth and reduce costs. The consensus was that many organizations will need to change their culture and how they think about managing information. Here’s a fascinating white paper about Big Data and Analytics for the travel industry.
Saving fuel with analytics
Fuel is a very big deal to airlines, accounting for about one third of their total operating expenses. Air Canada’s Director for Fuel Efficiency, Captain Claude-Martin and IBM’s Lori Brewer presented a session describing how IBM Research and Air Canada have developed a solution using advanced analytics and "Watson-like" technology to provide decision support to optimize fuel usage. Attendees saw a demonstration of the fuel solution, named SIMON. Very impressive stuff!
SXSW: Key decision makers around the globe are influenced by social networks: GlobalWebIndex research SXSW session
As part of my SXSW speaking proposal on 'How to Avoid Being a Social Zombie in a Global World', I recently caught up with Tom Smith at GlobalWebIndex who shared some fascinating insights from their unique and far-reaching study of the patterns of key decision makers: a theme we'll be exploring further in our session.
The findings are a must-read for anyone who does business globally!
Take, for instance, the GlobalWebIndex finding that those decision makers who interact most on social networks are from emerging markets such as Thailand, Turkey and Mexico. If you are looking to do business in the emerging markets, don't ignore the local social networks!
Also, when asked what they consider the most influential marketing channel, decision makers overwhelmingly picked 'Conversations with people from the company/organization on a social network'. Your employees are a more trusted source than than your webinars, sales presentations or events. This is in line with our push here at IBM to become a social business: we have a strong emphasis on employee enablement.
Now, another fascinating finding is that these decision makers make heavy use of mobile technologies to access social networks, whether that be a smartphone or a tablet. Business happens around the clock and these folks are always on. Are you?
You'll find more even more insights in this 8 minute webinar I recorded with Tom:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8pKQB1gk0E
We will be diving deeper into this topic during the proposed session http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/23204 at SXSW. Want to hear more? Don't forget to also see my other session: Socialytics Bootcamp! Social + Big Data + Analytic http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/23035
I look forward to seeing you at SXSW 2014!
Social Business Lesson: What is reflected?
As I was at the beach this summer, I caught this gorgeous picture of the moon reflecting on the water!
It got me thinking about how social reflects your company's culture and for you personally, your personal brand. Social really reveals all the parts of your culture -- good , bad, and neutral.
The moon's shine above in the picture is ampliflied by the water, just as your company's cultural elements are amplified by social.
One of my favorite quotes is:
"Social doesn't transform your culture. It reveals your culture."
This fact is why i advise my clients to do a cultural assessment before starting down the social path.
Here's a quick tidbit of that assessment. And I'll leave you with this question. What does social reveal about your culture?!
Are you Engaged?
This week so far I have been asked a dozen times to define engagement. Here's what I came up with .....
When you look closely, you see that engagement isn’t mostly resulting in better marketing. People are not clamoring for more of that. What’s happening instead is that marketing is being replaced by engagement, by useful assets, by value. In exchange for their data – who they are, what they’re looking for, even where they are standing or driving at this moment – they expect some kind of benefit in return… whether as customers, or patients, or students, or citizens.
Engagement. ]Your emotional connection with your client or employee, usually created by exceptional experiences that are integrated, interactive, and identifying. A Social Business connects people to expertise. It connects individuals whether customers, partners, or employeesas networks of people to generate new sources of innovation, foster creativity, and establish greater reach and exposure to new business opportunities. It establishes a foundational level of trust across these business networks and thus a willingness to openly share information, developing a deeper sense of loyalty among customers and employees. It empowers these networks with the collaborative, gaming, and analytical tools needed to engage each other and creatively solve business challenges.
Engaged Clients. Clients who are attentive, interested, and active in their support for your brand, product, or company. The depth of their conversations online showcases their knowledge and care. They recommend and passionately advocate on your behalf in the blogosphere.
Engaged Employees. Those who know the company’s values and are empowered to leverage those values with their partners and clients. They know their role and understand how to reach out to the right expert. These new social employees are about commitment and success.
Talking Social Business with Airlines in Prague with a new Social Study for Airlines
The GLOBAL AIrline Summit.
On September 9, I’ll be talking with senior airline executives from around the world at the IBM Airline Summit in Prague, Czech Republic. The theme of the summit is “Smarter travelers expect smarter airlines: Delivering an exceptional customer experience while optimizing operations.”
Today’s travelers really do expect more from airlines than ever before. Yes, we expect smooth operations, a pleasant flight and good value.
But more and more we expect personalized customer service while we are shopping for a trip and during each step of the journey, delivered consistently through all the devices we use.
The NEW Socially Connected Airlines.
Today, meeting those expectations depends on using the latest social business tools to help the airline workforce keep the planes on schedule and to create exceptional customer experiences.
I recently read a related article in Business Travel News that might interest you by Paul Campion, an IBM colleague in the UK.
The SUMMIT. A Breakthrough Event!
At the summit, airline executives will share their own experiences and hear speakers from other airlines, industry analysts, a leading international airport, Coca-Cola marketing, Netflix, and from IBM.
We’ll be launching some exciting new social business research sponsored by IBM with PhoCusWright - “Social media in travel: mayhem, myths, mobile and money.” The study will provide clear quantitative insights around what travel companies need to manage, mobilize, and monetize their social strategy.
Of course, the Summit won’t be all work and no play. I hear that we’ll take a tram ride and walking tour through Prague’s beautiful old town. Then we’ll share a meal in one of the city’s great restaurants. I’m looking forward to it. Watch this space for my blog post after the event.
TGIF - Generation C: Connected and in control
The level of connectedness today is unprecedented
And, with that connectedness comes power.
This is Generation C: Connected and in control!!!
Here is how today’s customer behaves.
We know this – we all behave like this. We interact with many different channels and devices in order to make decisions and interact with the companies that we do business with.
And when we interact through all of these different channels, we expect that the business is thinking about experience – not just in a single channel at a point in time but holistically as we interact across the channels to complete whatever it is we are trying to do. We EXPECT that a site will be relevant if we get to the site from a banner ad or search term. We EXPECT that the profile we set up online is the same profile for the mobile application. And, we get a little annoyed when we have to repeat all of our information to the customer service representative after already entering it all through the phone keypad.
However, the reality is that, most companies are extremely siloed. They often have different technology and data that is driving the customer experience. But, even worse, they often have entirely different objectives and are measured in inconsistent, or even competitive, ways.
In four years between 2008 and 2012, the percentage of brands that were rated as having “excellent” customer experience plummeted from 11 to 3 percent.
Being able to use social and omni channel is the solution! More on this next week!!!